Undone
by intallah
Summary: Konan/Jiraiya-He teaches her one last thing, he likes to think.


_Konan/Jiraiya. Characters are Kishimoto's._

**Undone**

_There was something silently poisonous about her. Something like a flower, tightly curled over its venom-glazed innards. Her eyes were like bruised berries, peeking from behind tiny, toxic white blooms. The way her hands danced and twisted, breathing life into paper that folded and twirled soundlessly into a deadly barrage, like the slick green of leaves unfurling to reveal razor-sharp edges, filled Jiraiya with a sort of excited unease, something that shot through him like a drug, forcing a chill through his body. _

_She wanted him to watch her, be near her; "Show me, sensei," She would whisper, words spilling like glittering marbles from her painted lips, "Show me." And he would not be able to resist placing his hand on her shoulder-bony and white and bare-and telling her exactly what it is she wanted to hear. _

Jiraiya does not understand Konan. He does not understand the intensity of her eyes, the darkness of her face. He doesn't really understand her jutsu-it seems fragile to him, the fluttering of her hands and the low, jittery cadence of her voice. He does not understand why, when he looks at her face-the lidded eyes, paper white skin-he thinks about Orochimaru, and something within him _hurts_.

[act i-sober

She comes to him when she is seventeen, after she has spent a year growing apart from him.

"I'm leaving." She says, leaning against his doorframe, arms bare and pale crossed protectively in front of her. "I thought I'd let you know."

Jiraiya sees narrow eyes and hears the hiss of a forgotten snake. "You're not following him are you?"

"He is great," She breathes, "You will see, all of you." Jiraiya raises an eyebrow.

"Huh. I never really knew you, eh Konan-chan?" He smiles at her grimace, painted eyes narrowing in what he thinks is undisguised hatred. "Never had you pegged as a follower."

"I'm not following him," she says quickly, "I just want to be with him. As myself, that's all. One day, Jiraiya-sensei, one day he will be far stronger than you." Her lips curl into pleasure. "And you know it."

"Actually I never thought of him that way. Somehow you took all of my fear, rather than him."

Konan laughs-a liquid, sensual noise and for a moment Jiraiya contemplates stepping back from her. But he doesn't. "I _took_ all your fear? I'm honored to think you paid any sort of attention to me _Sensei_. I was the quiet and gentle one wasn't I? I was the necessary female and the token weakling, hmm? Not like your darling Minato, so full of _life_. All that shit." Her lips curl and Jiraiya is struck by the whiteness and sharpness of her teeth. He smiles.

"You talk big for such a little girl." He chuckles at the shock that shows on her frosted features. "Do you know nothing of life, Konan? Are you ready to blindly sever your ties like this? Walk into the arms of a madman?"

"Madman?" She laughs again, a little shakily, "He is only what you drove him to be." The words sting, yes, but he notices the depth of her eyes for what seems like the first time. They had seemed, for the most part, too dark to fathom before. But there is light in them now, as if the shadows are shot with gold.

"You are so beautiful," He tells her, not regretting any of it, "You should stay here."

"Beautiful?" She falters for a moment, tears her eyes from his, "If that how you judge all women? Whether or not they are beautiful?"

"No-" He begins, but there is colour in her cheeks now, she bites her dark lip, teeth glaring against the crimson.

"What if I was ugly?" Her voice is flat, "Would you tell me to leave then?"

"Of course not." He lets his fingers glide over her wrist, pulls her hand from where it is clamped around her body, "You're just a girl," He whispers, "You're not ready." Oh yes, he pleads now. He wants her to stay, the lingering scent of her tea leaves, the rustle of the rice paper that follows her. He can see her traveling far away, small and delicate in a harsh, unyielding mountain range, leaving bits of herself behind her as she walked, paper cranes following behind her, and it makes him _sad_.

"That's not for you to decide," She whispers, "Let me go." But Jiraiya shakes his head, tracing patters on her wrist.

"You don't want me to," he says gently, "Why else would you come here?"

"No," She shuts her eyes and he focuses on the slick blackness of her eyelids, another symbol of her venom, "That's not it."

_Don't let me go, she whispers to the night. But Minato has always been his favourite, and he thinks Pein is worthless. He shows her nothing, but only smiles at her origami, the crinkle of paper and the familiar dance it performs in her outstretched hands. She is a girl and it is all a game and he _fears_ her. _

_Touch me, she wants to say it again and again, please, I need to know you care. And she doesn't know if he is pushing her away or pulling her to him._

[act ii-tipsy

It is later, after he has offered her wine and she has declined. But she sits with him still, smoke in her eyes and sake bitter on her tongue.

Kiss me, she should really whisper. Yes, she likes it like _that_. He would refuse, she knows. Either that or he would fall into her, his hands too large in her hair, his mouth hot with expectations.

"It is wrong," she says out loud, and laughs a little bit when she looks at her. He has the strength she needs, and she seems to have the strength he fears. Some sort of poetry, she reasons. And he would laugh if he knew.

"What?" He asks, head cocked to the side, "You leaving? I know it is."

"Don't," she whispers, voice a little hoarse and harsh. Yes, it could be that perfect. He reaches for her a little blindly, because she is beautiful and he is terrified. As if she would shatter, as if a touch could snap her in half. He pictures her lungs like paper, her heart like paper-thin and translucent. And he knows they would tear too easily.

"You ruined it all," she turns away with an alluring finality, "You never cared for me, and I could be so much _more_."

"Is that what he told you? Pein?"

"_No_," she hisses, "I know it myself."

Jiraiya takes that for an answer, for something profound hidden in her softened words. She wants something from him, doesn't she? He is not sure whether it is approval or not. No, he decides, it cannot be.

"What are you here for?" He asks once more and something in her face catches, a snag on the alabaster smoothness of her skin, a crease across her forehead. "Whatever it is, Konan, whatever it is…I'll tell you. I'll show you."

"Show me…" she breathes and (oh dear, they are far too close) he touches her cheek, presses his lips to her forehead, smooth once more. Air slips from between her lips, a breath she hadn't know she had been holding. _Let it be beautiful_, she begs, before reaching and touching his lips, _let him see it all._

They burn the room down anyways. He still hasn't seen.

_And, _there_ it is. Yes, show me everything, she tells him. She has seen him uproot flowers, shy in the earth. And his hands are big enough to wrap around her waist. Safe, she will tell him later, that he makes her feel safe. And she does not like it, although sometimes she needs it. _

_She will leave; yes of course she will leave. There is no glory in this love, and though it is messy and big and beautiful she knows that it is not worth staying. _

_And no, it is not because of Pein. Not this time._

[act iii-drunk

_Shit_, she's weightless and its wonderful. He shows her everything, of course he does. Jiraiya could never turn down a face like that, really, no matter how wrong it is.

Exhilaration is sweet and she cannot ignore it. The pulse and rush that crashes around her again and again as his hands find more of her body, oh _yes_, this is what she must could not leave without sampling.

He uproots her with murmurs of no, while she breathes yes against his neck. He has called her a flower so many times that maybe, _maybe_ she is becoming one.

He covers the whiteness of her stomach with his hand, lips nestled against the crook of her neck, "Beautiful," he whispers, tongue wet and rough against her untouched skin. She arches back against him.

"Please," she whispers it as a curse and he obliges, turning her around and letting her slide up against him, his hands up her top, fingers teaching her a new, secret melody.

"Stay," He tells her, licking her collarbone. She shudders at the warmth, and suddenly she's not so sure.

"No," She moans as his fingers trail down her inner thigh, "Oh, no, please."

"Stay," he breathes it this time, hot and hard against the side of her neck, "It won't be so hard."

"Yes," she opens her eyes and his face is centimeters away, "You don't know." She tilts his chin up with a finger and kisses him gently, tiny in his muscled arms.

Oh yes, it is enough. But he doesn't see. She thinks maybe he never will.

_And so she leaves with Pein on her arm and a flower, harshly yanked out of the ground, tucked into her hair. Pein tells her she is strong, calls her beautiful and perfect and with a promise (someday we will be _great_), he takes her away._

[act iv-hangover

He does not say good-bye. She fills his apartment with rice paper shapes that dance and breathe as a reminder.

/end


End file.
